We are
We've co-designed and co-developed with students and teachers with visual impairments — building a solution that works for them.
Led by the visually impaired community
Mentored by experts in education and assistive technologies
3+ years of validation, testing and growth
Director of Special Needs, Ministry of Education, Kenya
Investment Manager, AT4D Trust
Education Studies Professor, Yale University
Founder & CEO, Signvrse
We collaborate with schools, accessibility advocates, and education teams to reach every learner.
AssistiveMath began in high school at the Kenya Science and Engineering Fair when our founder, Ron Pile, explored how visually impaired students could learn mathematics through simple and accessible learning aids. He adapted the hand-rule trick for learning sines, cosines, and tangents into a tactile learning aid. It was made from waste cardboard paper— therefore making it simple, portable, cost-free, and easy to replicate.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools moved to online learning, but students with visual impairments were often left behind. Remote learning tools could not accommodate both sighted and visually impaired learners, forcing learning to stop altogether. This moment revealed that the challenge was the lack of accessible, affordable learning systems for visually impaired students.
Ron began transforming the original paperboard model into a digital learning aid. He launched the first AssistiveMath website, starting with the trigonometry tool and talking calculators to support distance learning. He also shared the project with Mr. Fred Haga, Director of Special Needs at Kenya's Ministry of Education, whose feedback helped validate the idea.
Through conversations with visually impaired students, teachers, and special needs education leaders, AssistiveMath's vision expanded. The feedback was clear: students needed support across mathematics, not just trigonometry, and teachers needed tools to create accessible learning materials. This pushed AssistiveMath from a single learning aid into a broader accessibility platform.
AssistiveMath grew from a passion project into a startup. The team conducted research on accessibility gaps in math education, learned web accessibility principles, and began building a scalable digital solution. With support from partners like InnovateNow and KBTA, they piloted the prototype with visually impaired learners and teachers, gathering feedback to improve usability and classroom fit.
AssistiveMath continued to grow through venture-building programs and ecosystem support, including Yale Tsai CITY LaunchPad. The platform received the Inclusive Africa Conference Award by inABLE, recognizing it as one of Africa's most promising assistive technology startups in 2025. This recognition affirmed the platform's potential to improve access to quality mathematics education
AssistiveMath is building a digital platform that supports visually impaired students and the teachers who serve them. The platform is evolving beyond learning aids into accessible content creation, teacher support tools, AI-powered accessibility, and inclusive classroom resources. From a cardboard prototype to a growing assistive technology startup, AssistiveMath remains guided by one mission: making math education inclusive for every learner.
